8.Jared Paul Stern's wife cheats, there are pictures — At first we couldn't believe the former Page Six gossip writer's wife would have sex with a random business partner, but then there were photos. As if getting fired from the Post amid nasty extortion allegations wasn't sad enough on husband Stern. Tragic.

I never thought the day would come when I might feel sympathy for Jared Paul Stern. When he was…
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7. "Steve Ratner has paid my wife $500,000.00 to leave me." — The head of private equity at Credit Suisse was driven from his job by a man whose wife he slept with. The guy spammed a tawdry tale of humiliation into newspaper comments sections. A sympathetic feature in the Times only deepened the humiliation. The internet is to blame, as always.

If you've visited sites like those run by New York magazine and the Observer over the past…
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6.Lara Logan, CBS News' Iraq-based homewrecker — She was a correspondent in Iraq, slept with a contractor named Joe Burkett (and this other guy, who works for CNN!) and then got pregnant. The first guy's wife was not happy. There was something about sexism and double standards but, really, it was just all awful and every involved came out looking pretty terrible, Logan very much included.

If you're a teen father thrust into the spotlight because your fiancée's mom is suddenly…
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4.Max Mosley's Nazi- or prison-themed S&M orgy tape — News of the World had five hours of video in which a British racing boss is disciplined by German-speaking women in some kind of make-believe prison-camp. Mosley denied it was a Nazi thing and won a suit against the tabloid for invasion of privacy. When will America learn to manufacture a proper, quality sex scandal with elaborate bondage and tons of video?

3.Madonna and A-Rod — They claim not to have slept together while Alex Rodriguez was married, but Madonna was, at the very least, emotionally close enough to the Yankees slugger to be named an "other woman" in his wife's divorce proceeding. The couple also felt the ned to meet at a New York restaurant in secret. Then, after the divorce, they flew all over the world together.

Madonna's messy divorce from Guy Ritchie gives the pop star a chance to recast herself for the …
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2.John Edwards cheats on his cancer-stricken wife, lies about it — Sure, other politicians have cheated on their sick wives and gone on to distinguished careers, but Edwards lied to the press, ran from National Enquirer reporters and hid in a bathroom, delayed any explanation for weeks and then issued a fishy, limited admission that, yes, he did screw former campaign videographer Rielle Hunter. But that love child isn't his!

One of Spitzer's hookers, Ashley Youmans (stage name Ashley Alexandra Dupre, hooker name "Kristen") had a MySpace account, had made video for Girls Gone Wild as a teenager, had a song on the internet, for sale and had made a music video. Everything was in place to explode her story.

Like Edwards. Spitzer, too, was ahead of the curve in calling out the rotting uselessness of then-respected American financial institutions . Oh well.

Worst:

Miley Cyrus wears lipstick in Vanity Fair, let's panic: She's wearing only bedsheet at age 15! Sex! Aggggh! She's a terrible role model and probably a witch! No wait, that Jewish lesbian mystic hypnotized her and instilled devil sensuality into her! Actually, it turns out she's been doing silly sorta sexual poses with her cameraphone, on MySpace, for various boyfriends forever, and she quickly acquired a 20-year-old man, and then said she'd love to work with Annie Leibovitz again.

Cindy McCain kisses another man!: They couldn't get this out before the election was over? At least then it might have drummed up some interest. Nothing has been heard about it since. Even if it pans out: Depressing.